IN GOVERNMENT they call it The Grid. A single timetable plots the major news events of the weeks and months ahead, from party conferences to World Cup qualifying matches, and ministerial announcements are timed accordingly. Media interventions are plotted to exploit quiet days and overshadow the Opposition’s efforts.

In Baghdad they appear to have a Grid too. And it is determining the fate of Kenneth Bigley.

The 62-year-old Briton held hostage in Iraq is, mercifully, still alive as I write. But that is not because of any inclination towards mercy on the part of his captors.

No, Ken Bigley has been kept alive for as long as he has because it serves the ideological ends of his terrorist captors. And the tragedy of his death, if and when it comes, will have been timed to achieve the maximum political impact. The shadow that has been cast over this week’s Labour Party conference has been carefully contrived.

By killing two Americans and then keeping Mr Bigley alive, by parading him as a pathetic captive on a videotape broadcast into all our homes, by putting words in his mouth that held Mr Blair responsible for his fate, and then by ensuring that Mr Bigley’s plight became a central issue at Labour’s conference, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has manipulated the British media, and Britons’ emotions, to serve his purposes.

Just as al-Qaeda scented weakness among the Spanish population when it plotted its bombing of Madrid for the climax of Spain’s general election campaign, so al-Qaeda has been carefully using the capture of Kenneth Bigley to shift British public opinion in an anti-war direction at a time when Tony Blair is under an even more intense spotlight than usual. And from the terrorists’ point of view, the British media have played their role perfectly.

There are three ways, in particular, in which the media collectively have played into the terrorists’ hands. The first is through personalising the drama so as to skew the whole notion of responsibility. The construction of a narrative in which the Prime Minister is to be judged by the efforts he makes in resolving one man’s destiny, the Bigley family become the arbiters of how effectively he has handled matters and it is up to the British Government to race against the clock to find a “solution” to militant grievances, may make for a compelling human-interest drama. But it unbalances the ethical picture radically. If and when Mr Bigley is murdered it will not be because of any lack of effort on the part of Mr Blair but because Islamist barbarians have, once again, decided to shed infidel blood in pursuit of a medieval ideology of death. Those barbarians know how a story such as that of Mr Bigley can capture our imagination and they are exploiting not just our compassion but also the media’s addiction to life-by-a-thread, something-must-be-done, ministers-yet-again-found-wanting stories.

The second manner in which the media are contriving to help the terrorists is by playing their perennial game of pin the blame on the donkey in the White House. On the Today programme last week there was agonised discussion of the extent to which the US had stood in the way of a satisfactory resolution of this crisis, and further “infringed” Iraqi sovereignty, by refusing to bow to al-Zarqawi’s wishes and release two female germ warfare specialists. Never mind that releasing two female Mengeles would send a signal that terrorism works, would dishearten every Iraqi who wants to see the rule of law upheld and encourage the jihadist belief that the West was weakening in its struggle against terror. Instead, just ask yourself what is happening to a country when the nation’s principal broadcaster sees a mass-murderer torture an innocent 62-year-old in the name of Allah and decides the real story is “Bush To Blame Again”.

The third way in which the media have helped to advance the terrorist agenda is simply by giving the story the prominence it has so far enjoyed. Networks, and newspapers, have given al-Zarqawi all the coverage he could ever have wanted. Executives at Sky and ITN argue that to have downplayed the issue would have been censorship and, besides, the most disturbing elements of the story, such as Mr Bigley’s videotaped appeal for help, would have been made public by other means, such as the internet or Arab channels such as al-Jazeera. They want to treat the Bigley story like any other. And therein lies their error.

Responsible news organisations do not broadcast material which they know will help our enemies at time of war. And a failure to realise that we are in a war with al-Zarqawi and al-Qaeda lies at the bottom of so much of the media’s failure properly to cover the challenge the West is now forced to confront.

Of course we in the media do not operate in a vacuum. Our responses reflect the society in which we live. And that is what is so particularly worrying. For Britain is acting in this drama just as Abu Musa al-Zarqawi calculated it would. Faced with his evil we ask what we have done to provoke it, and look to see how we might appease it. Our bishops invite us to reflect on the role we have played in stoking resentments in the Middle East. In the Daily Mail Terry Waite argues that we cannot understand matters without appreciating how sorely provocative to Arab opinion our own, American and Israeli actions have been. We send distinguished emissaries from the Muslim Council of Britain who ask that Ken Bigley not be held responsible for their own country’s “crimes” and promise forgiveness for “all wrongdoings” if only Mr Bigley is spared.

I pray that he is. But I fear that in our desire to make his agony a big story the media have only confirmed that we do not really understand the enormity of the threat we all face.

michael.gove@thetimes.co.uk

Join the Debate at comment@thetimes.co.uk